North Hollywood High School senior Ella Michaels, left, and fellow students who are banding together to fight against the potential co-location of a charter school on their campus. As of Thursday, about 1,800 people had signed their petition opposing such a move. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Students at North Hollywood High School are spearheading a fight to stop a charter school from potentially sharing their campus next year.

The concerned students, along with a handful of parents, have organized an online petition that had garnered more than 1,800 signatures Friday in an effort to prevent the newly approved Valley International Preparatory High School (VIPHS) from co-locating on their campus. They are also asking local neighborhood councils to support their cause.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which green-lighted VIPHS’ charter petition in December for five years, has made a preliminary offer to the charter school applicant to share the Colfax Avenue site next school year.

“The primary concern that’s closest to most students’ hearts is the loss of a lot of programs and opportunities on campus that we simply wouldn’t have room for if a charter would co-locate here,” said Ella Michaels, a North Hollywood High senior who is captain of the debate team and whose brother is a junior. “We’re already strapped for resources as it is.”

North Hollywood High School has nearly 2,525 students enrolled on its campus, according to district officials. Adding the charter school would bring up to 400 more.

Some North Hollywood students say they fear losing their school’s career center, college center, parent center and computer rooms since they are not used like traditional classrooms. They also worry about losing rooms that are used by their award-winning Science Olympiad, CyberPatriot and Robotics teams, which need ample space to practice and learn.

The law, however, may not be on these students’ side. California’s Prop. 39, which was approved in the Nov. 2000 ballot, requires that school districts offer equitable and adequate unused public space to charter schools in their areas.

From left to right: Luc Raderman, Sienna Horvath, Alec Boulton, Darielis Hernandez, Tyler McCrary and Briana DeArmas at the iLEAD school in Van Nuys. The students plan to attend the newly approved Valley International Preparatory High School next year after their current school program closes in June. VIPHS may co-locate on North Hollywood High School’s campus, which has sparked some protest. (Photo by David Crane/Los Angeles Daily News-SCNG)

At least one student who plans to attend VIPHS next year is eager for the charter school to find a home.

“We don’t want to take anything away from anybody…at the same time, you have to look at it from our point of view,” said Sienna Horvath, a sophomore at iLEAD North Hollywood in Van Nuys, who plans to enroll at VIPHS next year along with many other students at her school. “Right now, we don’t have anything. We don’t have a single classroom.”

Plus, the school has a legal right to exist and have space, she noted.

VIPHS was founded by parents and educators of students being forced out of iLEAD North Hollywood – an independent learning center with a classroom component that’s slated to close June 30 – due to a California Supreme Court decision, according to VIPHS petitioners. That 2017 ruling reiterated that all charter schools are required to be located within the geographical jurisdiction of their authorizing body.

At least some educators and administrators at iLEAD North Hollywood are expected to apply for positions at the new charter school, said Robert Moore, a VIPHS board member.

“The impetus for pursuing this charter was to make sure that the students and families currently attending a hybrid charter in Van Nuys would have an option to continue learning in a community they adore and with educators they respect,” VIPHS officials wrote in a response to concerned individuals.

VIP’s program will provide individualized college preparation and guidance, high-end extracurricular and elective classes and “a culture that values collective well being,” according to the school’s officials.

LAUSD said in a statement that its local district is working closely with North Hollywood High administrators to “ensure that valuable programs, such as Robotics, are minimally impacted.”

And where relocation is necessary, they will make “every effort” to provide a similar space to the one the students and staff now have, district officials said.

“The primary concern that’s closest to most students’ hearts is the loss of a lot of programs and opportunities on campus that we simply wouldn’t have room for if a charter would co-locate here.”

— Ella Michaels, North Hollywood High senior

They added that a co-location should not make class sizes at North Hollywood High larger, but it was unclear how they would adjust to give the charter school the 14 classrooms it would need.

LAUSD must make a final offer to the charter school applicant by April 1 while the applicant must decide by May 1, according to the district.

Despite making “every effort” over the past 16 months to secure a private site for the upcoming school year, VIPHS officials said they have been unable to do so.

The petitioners noted in their application that they would be willing to locate somewhere between Burbank and Calabasas, and that Van Nuys High School, North Hollywood High, Birmingham High in Van Nuys and Taft High in Woodland Hills would be ideal.

LAUSD Board Member Scott M. Schmerelson, whose district includes North Hollywood, said the law says the district has to comply with Prop. 39 and it does.

But with North Hollywood High slated to undergo a major modernization project in the first quarter of 2020, the VIP school may have to find another campus soon afterward, he said.

Any school undergoing major renovations “should not have co-locations there because it’s unfair to everybody,” Schmerelson added.

(The school district has notified the charter that it would be unable to accommodate its students at North Hollywood High after next school year due to the construction.)

However, VIP petitioners said that no other district sites were available where the majority of parents and students interested in enrolling live and that were within their desired boundaries.

“I can understand why North Hollywood is a little concerned. “(But) once they get to know… the students and teachers, I think they would probably realize that it would add to their experience, not take away.”

— Greg Lannan, a parent

Parent Greg Lannan plans to enroll his daughter, today a freshman at iLEAD North Hollywood, at VIP next year. His son, currently a senor at iLEAD, once struggled academically and socially but has thrived under the leadership of the school’s teachers and administrators, Lannan said. The teen is now college-bound.

“I can understand why North Hollywood (High) is a little concerned,” he said. “(But) once they get to know… the students and teachers (who will be at VIP), I think they would probably realize that it would add to their experience, not take away.”

But North Hollywood High sophomore Laila Smith-France is not convinced. She worries that sharing her campus could result in scrapping important services, such as those that educate students and parents about higher education.

“A lot of my friends and I do not know a lot about college and how to get financial aid so most of us feel like we can’t go to college,” she said Wednesday after appealing to the Valley Village Neighborhood Council for support with a classmate. “Once I found about the college center and the parent center that teaches parents how to get financial aid, I was like, ‘this cannot go. This is my guidance.’”

Editor’s Note: The names of two iLEAD students, Luc Raderman and Briana DeArmas, have been corrected in a photo caption from an earlier version.

Brenda Gazzar is a multilingual multimedia reporter who has worked for a variety of news outlets in California and in the Middle East since 2000. She has covered a range of issues, including breaking news, immigration, law and order, race, religion and gender issues, politics, human interest stories and education. Besides the Los Angeles Daily News and its sister papers, her work has been published by Reuters, the Denver Post, Ms. Magazine, the Jerusalem Post, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, The Cairo Times and others. Brenda speaks Spanish, Hebrew and intermediate Arabic and is the recipient of national, state and regional awards, including a National Headliners Award and one from the Associated Press News Executives' Council. She holds a dual master's degree in Communications/Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

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